Follow my journey through 25 years of bipolar disorder and surviving a suicide attempt. Happily married 15 years, and now a published author, I am also a contributor to the HuffPost and The Mighty. My memoir is now available on Amazon.com!

A Moment In Time

Sometimes when you least expect it, you need to take a step back. Try to figure out what goal it is that you’re looking to achieve. Really look inside your head and block out all of the outside forces. I’ll be honest. Behind the whole “let’s change the world and make it a more tolerant place” facade, lies one exhausted, overwhelmed, and frustrated individual.

So, here I am…awake at 3:09 am, listening to my husband’s C-Pap machine and wishing my restless leg syndrome would go away. I feel hurt and let down by a lot of people, but I’m letting them make me feel that way. I know I’ve grown a lot, and I’m in a different place than I was in 2013, but I honestly have no idea where I’m headed next. I’m lost in the shadow of the pain that hovers over me.

It’s the anniversary of my mother’s death. Eight years have passed, and somehow just thinking of it automatically transports me back to that moment at 7:00 PM, the doctor came in and turned off those machines. I’ll never forget that feeling of utter despair and loss. When I lost her, I lost a piece of myself that I’ll never have back. I’ve never been the same person since that day, and I never will be. I just can’t get that image out of my head.

So, I am taking that much needed step back. Which is ironic, because I was just informed by my publisher that I will be embarking on a virtual blog tour. In essence, I will be contributing to whatever blog and/or podcasts will have me. Maybe that’s why, on a personal level, I’m inclined to move away from social media for a time. I know I spend far too much time online as it is. There are days when I wish I never would have started using Facebook. When my husband is sitting next to me, and we’re not talking to each other, using our phones to talk to other people…well, you’ve got to draw a damn line somewhere. I’ve worked far too long and far too hard to let my marriage go down the tubes because we don’t actually communicate with each other anymore. That is not going to happen to me.

So, if I have to take his phone and throw it across the room, I’m going to do it. I have so little time with him to start with, and to have social media come between us in our time together is unacceptable. I know he’ll read this, and I hope he understands and agrees.

I cried a lot today, and at one point when I had stopped, I opened the curtain in our room, and noticed the sun start to shine. Inside my head, I said, “Hi Mom…I love you too”. We have an old answering machine that I have I believe 4 messages from her stored on it. I’m not sure where that machine is right now, and maybe it’s better that way, because I think hearing her voice would break me more than build me up. When you start hitting your forties, and you start realizing that the older you get, the more people you’re going to lose, well…it’s like a kick in the gut. I feel like I’ve lost enough for a lifetime, but I have so much more to endure. How I will get through that, I have yet to determine. With my husband by my side, we’ll figure it out.